


Twenty-, Thirty-, Fifty-Six (March Edition)

by mayachain



Series: birthday!verse [34]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Birthday, Cuddling & Snuggling, Established Relationship, Exhaustion, Hogwarts Fifth Year, Loneliness, M/M, Medication side effects, Pre-Canon, Remus' wandering years, Travel, Werewolves, wizard academics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-10
Updated: 2016-03-10
Packaged: 2018-05-25 23:56:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6215338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayachain/pseuds/mayachain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three times Remus Lupin wanted nothing more than sleep on his birthday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twenty-, Thirty-, Fifty-Six (March Edition)

**March 10th, 1986**

In a tiny room in a small bed & breakfast at the outskirts of Sodankylä, Remus Lupin was nursing the sting of a Finnish Glumbumble. To a normal wizard, recovering from the ensuing melancholy after quaffing down the cure in front of his hunting mates would have been no problem at all. For Remus, the side effects spelled such misery that he knew he would have been better off without taking medication at all.

The people he’d found here were nice to knowledgeable travelers. He’d been with them for two weeks and hoped to return once he turned south again from the Barents Sea.

Making new friends didn’t mean he’d dared to reveal his furry little problem to them. Judging from his own experience as a child the rabid in question might well have deserved it, still – the last werewolf lynching in these parts was far too recent.

 _I can’t risk falling asleep before the brew’s run through my system,_ he thought.

He was shaky, his stomach rolled with nausea, and his toes, of all things, were seizing with cramps. Remus would have told anyone who knew that he was well used to feeling ill, but - At least after the full moon, exhausted sleep was usually an option.

For the first time since he’d left Britain, he wished he’d had the wherewithal to activate his emergency port-key while he could still move. He was twenty-six years old, all his friends were dead, and he wanted nothing more than for Molly Weasley to spread a blanket over his shivering body.

 

**March 10th, 1996**

It was late when Remus returned to Grimmauld Place. All week he’d been walking through the Irish Woods, talking for hours on end to what he’d hoped was not just himself. There was a pack of five living in the area, he’d been sure of it and he had been _right_ , but it had taken days before they had let themselves be approached.

He let himself into the house and made his way toward his room. He caught a glimpse of cake and champagne on his way past the kitchen. There were presents – from Molly, from Albus, from Tonks, from Sirius.

He met Sirius’ eyes as he reached the stairs. 

Remus knew he should give his report, recount how he’d had to fight the elder son before the old woman he had spoken to had let him leave. It had been mostly for show, neither of them had sustained injuries and this had told him that his instincts had been right to try and recruit the small pack to their side, but… He’d known he couldn’t simply apparate away if he ever wanted a chance to talk to them again. The old werewolf would never let herself and hers be found by someone she considered a coward.

Sirius let him pass without comment, trudge upward, and fall face-down onto the bed.

He should give his report. Two more visits and the Irish pack might invite him for the full moon. The trip hadn’t been a complete failure. It _hadn’t_.

There was a quiet “ _Scourgify_.” A minute later, a large black dog shook the mattress as it curled up at Remus’ feet.

 

**March 10, 2016**

They’d made the deadline. For most of February and the beginning of March it had felt as if they’d struggled with every word, but miracles of all miracles, they technically even had a week left. Professors Lupin and Aguilar had been unstoppable since yesterday morning, had barely paused to eat and drink and postpone Remus’ party, had worked on the last owed chapter all through the night and all of today, had finished the draft just midnight and _sent it off_. 

Rarely had Remus been so relieved in his life.

He and Severus would celebrate with Teddy in Hogsmeade in the afternoon and come nightfall Remus would go out with the Potters. Tomorrow. They would pack a few things and hole up in the Malfoy’s place at the French Riviera and do absolutely nothing until Teddy turned eighteen. The day after tomorrow.

For now: They’d let themselves bask in their pride, smile whenever one of them whispered, “We did it.” They’d lie in their bed and, for lack of a better word, _snuggle_ as they hadn’t really since the week before, not since Severus had insisted that the fifth archway of the _grotta_ was worth a mention but not a roll of parchment. (Their draft gave it three paragraphs.)

They’d laugh at the panic their early postage would send at least one fellow contributor to _Accursed Caves_ into, soak up each other’s presence, and let satisfaction at their accomplishment carry them to sleep.

 

.


End file.
